And not everyone is rational. The prepping movement contains overzealous elements, particularly in the US, where natural disasters are bigger and badder and, well, the guns. But those signed up to the movement in the UK are like you and me: relatively normal, with the odd quirk. They just keep a half-tank of petrol in the car at all times, and at least a month’s worth of food, and an alternative way to heat their homes in winter if the gas goes down.
Sigh, yet another ‘prepper’ website with zero to little factual or useful information. I’m convinced none of you fools have a clue. You have no practical experience, no thoughtful knowledge, no real advice. You don’t even know what the MRE consists of or what the heater chemicals were (and it matters, as there is a ton of useful applications here). And your website royally sucks. Girls in bikinis? End of the World advertisements? Celebrity pictures? You’re just like every other reseller out there trying to promote the fear card. No thanks. I’ll shop elsewhere where the propaganda isn’t so incessant… Read more »
A popular way of guarding against this kind of catastrophe is storing food at home. This is called Long Term Food Storage, Emergency Essentials, or Emergency Survival Foods and there are dozens of companies selling food specifically for this purpose. The best, including those listed below, have great tasting products with a long storage life at a reasonable cost.
Didn’t see this on the list and it could be an entire new thread. But first have a olan of what you will do. Think of all scenarios. What to do if you are not at home with the family. Where do you meet? Do you have a bug out site that everyone who needs to know has a map to it and knows when to bug out. Make sure you have what you need from this llist at the bug out site already. Do not try to haul what you need once you get there. You wil never make… Read more »
Austere Living Techniques- Everything gets harder when modern conveniences, luxuries really, disappear. Avoid feeling overwhelmed and helpless by practicing self-reliance and making do with less, now. Learn how to build cooking and camp fires, maintain hygiene, dispose of waste, control your body temperature and create what you need. This is not just for “bush life,” and will prove valuable when the electricity and gas is cut off.

Communication: Radio is still the best way to get emergency info. Unfortunately we’ve had a lot of bad experiences with the $20 to $70 “emergency radios” commonly available on Amazon. Poor reception, awful durability, bloated with unneeded features, etc. So we’re not going to make a recommendation until we’ve done a full product review, but if you’re looking anyway, Kaito and Eton are the two most common brands.

3) the best part? many of them have something that is not advertised on the Internet: 20-lb paper bags of both red and white hard wheat at an amazing price! No, you can’t #10-can them and they can’t ship them, but if you live in a reasonable drive or a friend is going near one, it’s definitely worth a little effort. Again, call ahead and make sure before going.
How would you like to call a missile base home? America built 107 missile bases around the country during the arms race in the 1960s, including the Atlas F Missile Silo located about 130 miles north of Albany. It was decommissioned after only four years and has sat dormant and neglected for decades, eventually selling for $160,000 in 1997 and again for $575,000 in 2015. Bear in mind that the “super hardened” facility, built for the equivalent of $100 million in today’s dollars, was designed to withstand almost any bomb imaginable.

David Dawson is a retired security specialist with over 20 years of experience. He worked for a secret manufacturing facilities and hospitals in Illinois. David's responsibility was to protect people in case of any disaster or cataclysm that might occur. Now he keeps on doing it through teaching others about how to prepare and survive flood, earthquake or even war.

EMP attacks, both natural and otherwise, are genuine threats. Once considered “conspiracy theory,” EMP attack threats have been featured in mainstream media publications such as Business Insider and Bloomberg. Natural EMP threats are proven as well. The sun’s solar flares have (and will again) wreaked havoc on our planet during non-technology eras. In 2012, it almost happened again.

107. Solar power watt kitt – A solar power watt kitt allows you to power your RV, home, cabin, boat, etc… all from the power of the sun. Solar power especially in the south can be very attractive as an alternative power source. To piece together a solar power kitt you will need, solar panels, charge controller, batteries, connections & wiring, as well as a power inverter. Windynation has ‘complete kits’ available if you want it in 1 package.

I made the mistake of trying to wake people up to my concept of what the country was coming to. My view of shtf and how i thought it was going to happen. I also told people about my prepping and how i believed it would help. Now i’m pretty sure if anything did occur i would have a few or more uninvited guests. The one guy literally said “Im coming to your house if shit goes down” No the hell you aren’t. I tell people these things so they will prepare themselves. Or help them awaken to the things… Read more »

Dust Masks or Respirators- Depending on the crisis, air quality may be severely deteriorated. Prevent the worst of the gunk from entering your lungs by investing in quality fitted N95 or N99 respirators and cartridges or disposable dust masks rated for fine particulate and organic vapors. These are not proper gas masks, as use and selection of protective equipment in preparation for airborne chemical or biological threats is another conversation entirely.
I don’t have high blood pressure, but am extremely salt sensitive. If I eat a Chinese meal (which I love!), I have to remember to take a couple of potassium tablets afterward, or I will puff up and look like I’ve been on a bender for the last two days! Swollen eyelids, fingers and even toes. Something not working well with my kidneys? Maybe. Hasn’t shown up in any blood work, and the potassium does the trick. So, we have to figure our own bodies out. Let’s be glad we all don’t have to fool around to do that! Good health is a blessing.
Yes, another non-necessity, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I like having options and redundancies. We have the smaller version of the Solo Stove – the Titan, and it’s great, though we’d prefer a larger size than we’ve got. Solo Stoves are overbuilt, definitely a one-time purchase rocket stove, looks pretty stinkin’ good for what it is, and while, yes, you can totally have a regular fire-on-the-ground, this is one of those things that helps you out in the you-won’t-need-too-much-wood department. And if you’re at all into greyman survival – well you won’t be leaving a mess behind if you use one of these to contain your fire.
I would add just a few things though, if you use creamer in your coffee add a few bottles of the powdered version, some dried fruits or a couple large bags of trail mix, pie fillings in a few fruit varieties (awesome in oats!), crackers are great for kids who won’t eat a tuna, spam or other canned meat sandwich but they may be willing to eat “lunchables” DIY of course!, and other all in one items like spaghetti O’s, canned stew, canned ravioli, and ramen. It may not be the healthiest solutions but if you need these items you will be exceptionally grateful you have them!

The alert and warning landscape is in an important state of transition; from the current system of radio, television, cable, satellite, and wireline broadcast media-based alerting to a future system that integrates new technologies for a more universal access to alert and warning messages. Future testing of the EAS will assess the effectiveness and reliability of other technologies to achieve the ultimate goal of timely alert and warning to American public in the preservation of life and property.

An emergency can strike without warning and unfortunately, most people find out too late that they are missing the essential supplies. Far too many times you’ve seen on the news how people line up in front of grocery stores hoping to get some last minute survival foods. If you end up doing the same, you should at least know what to buy from your grocery store.

It was a bit paralyzing, knowing I couldn’t do much in this situation to keep my kids safe. I’m grateful it was a false alarm.At home we have supplies and plenty of food, but here on vacation, not so much. We did just go to the grocery store last night, so we have several days worth of food, but only an electric stove to cook with if we couldn’t go outside. Otherwise, no preps here, and very little with us.”

Then you would need water, food, composting toilet. There would likely be an EMP, so you’d need a radio protected in mylar bag, and that bag has to be protected from the blast. The radio may be a source of info about how your area was hit. The government would do a survey about the affected area. If you are on your own, you’d need a radiation detector and knowledge to do your own survey. You’d likely need to leave an area eventually, but EMP likely would’ve disabled your car.
to inventory what I have, I’m amazed, feel a bit better. Some things on this list I dont have much of, but others, I have lots of. I usually buy both krusteez and bisquick. you can use them for other things like chicken pot pie in your cast iron dutch oven, or make a cobbler, and use canned veggies, and canned fruits. now im off to trim lettuce, and asparagus in the garden before they go to seed.
You may actually be right, Illini Warrior. There’s something very strange going on with people. They seem to becoming more violent and destructive and I really don’t know what the cause is. Just this morning on the news I heard that another package exploded. I think it was in a UPS depot somewhere in the States. Apparently two people were killed and a number injured. I don’t know what people are thinking when they commit these kinds of atrocities. And we’re still supposed to be living in the “good times”. What’s going to happen when you deprive people of their creature comforts and have them starving at the same time. I shudder at the possibilities. I hope to god you’re wrong about 2018.
afraid i haven’t. my experience has been that the average person will resort to lying, stealing and often violence at the first sign of trouble. there are exceptions, of course, but i haven’t found any reliable way to identify them before the shtf. even longtime friends can turn on a dime; and relatives…well, just consider what happens when some well-heeled person in the family dies! wish i could be more encouraging, but i just don’t see it that way.
In 1980, John Pugsley published the book The Alpha Strategy. It was on The New York Times Best Seller list for nine weeks in 1981.[11][12] After 28 years in circulation, The Alpha Strategy remains popular with survivalists, and is considered a standard reference on stocking food and household supplies as a hedge against inflation and future shortages.[13][14]
The EMP/grid down threat has been our biggest concern and the primary focus of our preparedness plan. Learning to live without electricity, or at least practicing from time to time exposes the weaknesses in planning. We get our water from a well, so we plan to use an Emergency Well Tube (www.emergencywelltube.com) if we lose electrical service. We also have manual kitchen appliances and other hand tools to fill-in for the corded ones should the need arise.
In all the years I’ve worked with preparedness one of the biggest problems I’ve seen is people storing food and not knowing what to do with it. It’s vital that you and your family become familiar with the things you are storing. You need to know how to prepare these foods. This is not something you want to learn under stress. Your family needs to be used to eating these foods. A stressful period is not a good time to totally change your diet. Get a food storage cookbook and learn to use these foods!
It turns out that vitamin B12, which is used in most, if not all, of the body’s systems (like neurological, cardiac, etc.) is only found in animal products. All vegans should therefore take supplements, according to the guidelines. If we are in an emergency situation where we can’t get meat, fish, cheese, yogurt, etc., we probably all would need supplementation! It’s critical to have enough, and the effects of not having it are irreversible. (Try dementia, tardive dyskinesia, and on and on.) Yikes! Add it to the list. Oh, well. B12 is small and really cheap.
32. Wood Burning Stove – These are great for not only cooking but if you love anywhere where there is snow on the ground 6 months out of the year can make great heaters if the power goes out. The price range can vary substantially depending on the size and quality of the stove. For just outdoor simple cooking checkout the wood burning rocket stove or the dead wood stove. For larger stoves check your grandparents old home 🙂
You can figure 25-30 years storage life for hard red wheat, stored at 60 degrees in a 55 gallon drum, using 1 pound of dry ice to drive out the oxygen (wait 24hrs for the dry ice to “melt” before sealing the drum). 400 pounds of wheat per drum equals 400 man-days of calories, and costs you about $100. Fill 3-4 barrels. It’s Cheap insurance. Add a barrel of Winter Rye for variety. Add a barrel of oats. Then a couple barrels of WHITE rice, and 2-3 barrels of pinto beans. (You need the beans to balance what’s missing from the grains. The beans may be harder to rehydrate after 10-12 years without a pressure cooker, but then you just grind up the dried beans, and bake them in your bread.) For around $1000, you can be prepared to feed your family for close to a decade, if you also garden, keep chickens, and have fruit trees and bushes. Honey is way too expensive to store on a dollar/calorie basis, but consider bee keeping. A drum takes up LESS than 2’X2’. And they stack nicely, at 33” tall. In a 2’X10′ strip along a basement wall, you can have 10 barrels with 4000 pounds of food. Hang a peg board in front of it, and you’ve got very useful space. If you can’t spare that much space in your basement, to protect the lives of your family, think Venezuela .
Most of us have some sort of toolkit around the house, but if you want to be prepared you need to make sure it’s ready for anything. At a minimum you’ll need a good carpenter’s hammer, a heavier ball peen hammer, wood saw and hacksaw. Other essentials include a monkey wrench, measuring tape, square and level. Cordless drills are great, but a hand drill is also good to have – what if your generator goes and you need to fabricate a replacement part? A set of good screwdrivers is also vital – don’t rely on an electric one. Make sure you have wrenches to fit all bolts on your vehicles and equipment, too.

But of the many women I spoke to for this story, none view their lifestyle as non-collaborative. For Andrea Chymiy, a family doctor who lives on an island several miles from mainland Washington and runs a blog called Lefty Prepper Mom, learning about emergency preparedness and writing about prepping is part of a wider commitment to community service: providing others with the emergency first-aid skills and food storage know-how to fend for themselves in the event of an earthquake or other natural calamity.

All the membership or discount cards they give you at stores track every purchase you make and I read somewhere these purchases, n o matter what you buy are tracked by the government. Even your computer tracks you. Have you eve noticed if you purchase an item online a few minutes later you will see a little screen pop up on the side showing what you just purchased and other similar items for sale.

I connected with Jennifer through Daisy Luther, the Virginia-based writer and survival preparedness expert behind the blog The Organic Prepper, which boasts more than 30,000 followers on Facebook and roughly 32,000 monthly visits on Pinterest. Jennifer says she learned a lot about prepping from the site and is a member of its affiliated private Facebook group, which Luther says is nearly 77 percent women. (Luther and other bloggers I spoke with for this story say that while they approach survivalism from a female perspective, they’ve encountered no small number of men who are interested in these practices as well.)

EAS Participants provide a critical public service to the nation as the resilient backbone of alert and warning when all other means of communication are unavailable. EAS Participants include all broadcasters, satellite and digital radio and television, cable television and wireline video providers who ensure the system is at a constant state of readiness.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in their "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign says that "the public should report only suspicious behavior and situations...rather than beliefs, thoughts, ideas, expressions, associations, or speech...".[86] However, it is alleged that a DHS list of the characteristics of potential domestic terrorists used in law enforcement training includes "Survivalist literature (fictional books such as Patriots and One Second After are mentioned by name)", "Self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)", and "Fear of economic collapse (buying gold and barter items)".[87][88]
Buckets are great! We have some with regular lids. Some, that we would open frequently have the Gamma Seal lids. (These lids allow you to have a screw-on, airtight lid on the opened bucket, rather than having to pry off the bucket lid every time you need to access the food.) #10 cans are also good. Go to www.providentliving.org and look up food storage, then find information on the LDS Home Storage Centers. BTW, you do not need to be LDS to buy food there.
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Dehydrating your food is a fabulous way to preserve it. Provided you have a dehydrator, you can dehydrate fruit, vegetables, and meat. Dehydration means to literally take the water out of the food. Without water, the food stays is less susceptible to spoilage. It can be eaten that way (think fruit leathers or beef jerky) or rehydrated and put into soups and stews and other meals.
When you go back to the last depressing days when we were in a survival mode, the last one the Y2K of course, before the 1970s, what had happened was you only saw this one element of survivalist, you know, the caricature, the guy with the AK-47 heading to the hills with enough ammunition and pork and beans to ride out the storm. This is a very different one from that: you're seeing average people taking smart moves and moving in intelligent directions to prepare for the worst. (...) So survivalism in every way possible. Growing your own, self-sustaining, doing as much as you can to make it as best as you can on your own and it can happen in urban area, sub-urban area or the ex-urbans. And it also means becoming more and more tightly committed to your neighbors, your neighborhood, working together and understanding that we're all in this together and that when we help each other out that's going to be the best way forward.

You make good sense about starting with a years supply of preps. Without putting any emphasis on myself it is easy for me to forget that I was born in 1953. What we call prepping is what my grandparents called normal living. They never stored water, of course we had plenty of it back then, but food, preserved, canned, dehydrated, powdered, and in just about every other form was everywhere in their lives. And they were not big farmers, just small timers with no bills, no agenda, no nothing except the ability to have plenty in the toughest of times. Those people taught me a lot and I thank Christ for them every day. Well, that’s enough about me. Best wishes to you and keep up the good work.

This list by necessity is very basic, and I am not claiming to cover every contingency or even a specific common threat in your area. I have weighted this list in general order of importance to let you hit the important things first and go from there, but depending on your locale and situation some elements may be more important or less. This is a guide; use your head and common sense.
In his 2016 book, Can It! The Perils and Pleasures of Preserving Foods, Gary Allen, a food writer and adjunct professor at SUNY Empire State College, traces the evolution of food preservation as a source of culinary innovation. “The original food-preservation methods—like salting and drying and all that—actually turned the food into something else,” he told me over the phone. “Cabbage sauerkraut is not the same thing as cabbage. Wine is not the same thing as grape juice.”